


train rides

by cloversnake



Category: 999, 999: Nine Hours Nine Persons Nine Doors - Fandom, Zero Escape (Video Games)
Genre: BIG 999 spoilers, F/F, M/M, it'll be mainly aoilight with implications of aliclover
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-09-26
Updated: 2014-09-25
Packaged: 2018-02-18 20:00:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,442
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2360450
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cloversnake/pseuds/cloversnake
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>post-sng Light and Clover run into Aoi while boarding a train.</p>
            </blockquote>





	train rides

In the bustling crowd of the train station, Aoi felt like a child whose parents had lost him in a convenience store, despite the fact that he hadn’t known that feeling in years. He didn’t even have his parents anymore- Hell, he didn’t even have the little sister he’d have to be a responsible grown-up for. He hadn’t seen anyone he cared about in almost a month now.  A month ¸ Aoi thought. He almost laughed. The thought of Akane leaving was still so surreal, despite it having happened. He still had her letter folded up and stuffed in his wallet. It was written so sternly, so tightly, and she hadn’t even left a clue as to where she was going. Just a short apology, and it ended so abruptly, with familiar lettering that just said “Love, Akane”.

He figured the hustle and bustle of New York would help him clear his head. So here he stood, at a California train station, waiting to board a train bound northeast towards New York City. The train was expensive to ride, and he’d have to stop in Chicago to switch trains, but he barely cared. He had all the money in the world, due to all of his stocks that were still skyrocketing. All the money in the world, but it couldn’t buy anything he really wanted. All he really wanted was his sister back. He just wanted to make her wish come true.

His thoughts were interrupted by the gust of wind that a train brought with it. It was a normal passenger train, and it brought him relief knowing that it would get him the fuck out of there. The people in front of him in line all slowly came back to life, their impatience fading as the line grew shorter. Aoi picked up his old, battered duffel bag and moved with the line. He glanced over his ticket once more- Car 4, Normal class, seat 4a. At least he would have a window for this, but he’d likely be crammed next to two strangers for the four-day train ride. It wouldn’t matter, though, nothing really did. He easily could have afforded a cabin, but he didn’t feel like putting forth the effort to upgrade to first class.

He finally boarded the train. He checked his phone- it was 8:17 in the morning. The next stop was only a half an hour away, still in California. He walked over to his seat, which still had two empty spots next to it. Hoping nobody would join him, he put his duffel bag under the seat, and sat down. He rest his head against the window, which showed the other side of the boarding platform, and a small glimpse of the tunnel they would be leaving the station from. As expected, it was covered in messy graffiti. There were more people sitting and standing on the other side of the platform, likely waiting for their own trains off to god-knows-where.

It felt like forever until the train finally started moving, and Aoi closed his eyes. He drifted off within minutes, due to how tired he was. He hadn’t been getting solid amounts of sleep for a long, long time. He found himself with the same recurring dream that he had almost every time he  could  sleep. He was facing a door, beating it as hard as he could, but he couldn’t get it open no matter how hard he tried. A cold, metallic voice said “Automatic Incineration will begin in… one minute”. The sobbing on the other side returned, in the most familiar voice he knew-

And then he woke up, his heart racing. The intercom on the train said something about how they’d arrived at their next stop, somewhere in California. Aoi forced himself back to reality, despite the still-lingering panic remaining from the nightmare. He watched the entrance to the train fill with people once more, none of which he recognized.

At least, until a certain girl with a bubbly aura boarded the train, pulling along on the sleeve of a man behind her. Her bright pink hair was down, reaching the middle of her back.  No fucking way , Aoi thought.  This is fucking impossible.  But it set in that it wasn’t impossible as soon as her bright teal eyes met his.

“Aoi, oh my gosh! Is that you!?” Clover said. She ran over to him, pulling the man along. That man was Light Field- her brother. Aoi looked over them both.  This cannot be happening, Aoi thought.

“Uh, yeah. Hey, Clover.” Aoi said. He was still taken aback. He’d taken a Benadryl that morning for his allergies, but that wouldn’t make him hallucinate this bad. He blinked, but no matter how many times his eyes opened and closed, the siblings were still standing in front of him. Light’s eyes were closed, as always, but his expression was curious. Clover looked shocked and excited.

“I didn’t expect to see you here!” She was practically bursting with excitement. Clover was dressed in a baggy t-shirt and sweatpants, but still wearing her usual amount of makeup. Light wore a button-up collared shirt with black pants.

“Perhaps we should take this discussion to our cabin?” Light said, his casual expression returning. Clover nodded.

“Uh, yeah, I guess. You guys have a cabin?” Aoi said.

“Yeah! Come with us, we have a lot to catch up on!” Clover said. She even grabbed his wrist and gently tugged him out of his seat. He stumbled, just barely able to grab his duffel bag as he was dragged along. Clover wouldn’t let go of his arm until they were all shut in cabin 5b, which was on the right side of the train. There were two seats, which folded into a small bed, and a top bunk that was currently folded upwards. Light sat down on the chair on the right, and Clover sat on the small ledge of the window. Aoi sat down across from Light. He sank into the bright blue chair. The walls of the room were a light gray, and the carpeting was black and firm. Aoi looked out the window as the train started moving through another graffiti-filled tunnel.

“So what brings you here?” Light said, cutting through the tense silence. Aoi glanced at Light, who was leaning back, but still tense.

“I dunno, honestly. I just… wanna get the hell away from everything, y’know?” Aoi said. It was ironic to him, though. He wanted to get away from everything, but he walked right into it.

“I understand that much, Clover and I are on a vacation to New York. But, I must ask, where is Akane…? I’d think you two would be inseparable after what happened,” Light said. He seemed to be treading as carefully as possible, but the word ‘Akane’ brought Aoi back to harsh reality. He didn’t know how to respond to such a question, so he reached into his wallet. There were two picture slots, one with his I.D., the other with a photograph of Akane, when she was just a kid. Just a small, innocent little kid, before she was murdered and their entire world was completely turned upside down forever. He pulled out a folded out piece of paper from behind the picture. Her letter. He didn’t bother to unfold it when he thrust it towards Clover. She skimmed it over, and then read it out loud for Light to see.

He didn’t expect it to hurt that much, but it did. Every single syllable felt like another massive boulder being pelted right at him, another knife plunging into his skin, it just hurt more and more. The letter was so short, but hearing the words read by someone else confirmed that yes- they were real . Akane Kurashiki had left Aoi behind, with nothing but a letter.

“…Love, Akane…,” Clover’s voice trailed off.

At that moment, Aoi’s entire world shattered. Whatever wall he’d built up, telling himself that Akane would walk back into their shitty motel room at any given moment, convincing himself that she was safe, she’d call him soon, asking to come back home… That wall came crumbling down with the last syllable of the name ‘Akane’.

“S-so… I guess that explains… what h-happened…” Aoi stuttered, trying to hold back the fact that he was about to start sobbing.  The confirmation that the words on the page were real, not just some fantasy, had made him break. The tears came as soon as he blinked, and there was no point to stopping them. One tear turned into a million, and he gave up his resistance. He slumped over, holding up his face with his hands, breathing heavily. He felt every breath he took, his chest heaved. Once the tears stopped coming, he tried to steady his breathing. Clover and Light were still and silent. He took a deep breath, only to be met with a hollow gasp. Suddenly he couldn’t control his breathing, and almost by reflex, he was hyperventilating. He clamped his hand over his mouth, which helped him regain control of his lungs.

“Aoi… I’m terribly sorry. It must be difficult to cope with your sister leaving so abruptly,” Light said.

“Yeah. Is it that obvious?” Aoi replied in a sarcastic manner. He looked up at Light, who looked surprisingly saddened by Aoi’s ordeal.

“Very.” He looked directly at Aoi, eyes closed, as usual. The air was tense in the cramped cabin again. Even Clover didn’t speak. Aoi didn’t know what to do or say. The silence was making it worse than it had been before.

“Uh… well… I’m kinda sleepy! So, I think I’m gonna lie down…” Clover said, with an obviously fake yawn, but neither Light nor Aoi wanted to call her out on it. She stood up and pulled down the shelf- it was a bed, which was very close to the ceiling. She retrieved a blanket from her bag, and hoisted herself up into the bed. She pretended to be asleep as soon as she hit the mattress, but it was quite obvious that she was pretending to anyone.

Aoi and Light sat in silence for a while, only broken when Clover actually snored. Light relaxed at the sound, as though there was something he was waiting to say, but he still remained silent. Aoi wanted something,  anything , to break the silence, but nothing came to mind. He decided to just say something meaningless, and hope it would start a conversation.

“So, uh… What’s up with you?” Aoi said. Light remained quiet for a second, but then spoke.

“Just business as usual, I suppose. I’ve been playing the harp, Clover works at a café now, all is pretty well at our house,” Light replied.

“You play the harp?” Aoi asked. Of all hobbies, Light played the harp? It seemed odd that a blind man would be talented at music to Aoi, but Light was a man that had shown many talents. A memory of Light taking six bullets for his sister in one timeline suddenly jolted to Aoi’s memory, but he shook it off as best he could.

“Yes, is that too surprising?”

“Well, you’re blind and you have one arm, so yeah, I’d assume that playing the harp would be pretty difficult, wouldn’t it?”

“Well, there are many things that are difficult, but I assure you, I can do many of them,” Light said. There was something about his smugness that Aoi liked- it was positive, and he didn’t act like he was above anyone else for being talented.

“That’s pretty cool,” Aoi said. He yawned soon after.

“Tired?” Light asked.

“Exhausted, actually. Haven’t been sleeping very well since… y’know, the game.”

“Ah, I understand. If you’d like, you can arrange the bed in here and sleep. I’m sure you’d much prefer that to sleeping in the main car, correct?”

“Uh, yeah, but is that okay? Like, you don’t mind?” Aoi asked. He was taken aback by the sudden kindness- the last time he saw Light, he had been revealed as Zero’s accomplice, so shouldn’t Light hate him…?

“It’s no trouble. You sound as though you haven’t slept well in weeks,” Light said. Now that Aoi was listening, he noticed that Light didn’t sound like he was at his best state, either, but he figured Light would prefer to keep that sort of stuff private. Without asking, Light stood up, cautious to avoid hitting his head on the bed which Clover slept on. Aoi took this as the signal to set up the bed. He pushed the two chairs together to form the bed- it was rather tiny, and it looked just barely big enough to fit the two. Aoi found a few pillows in a small compartment next to the bed, which also served as an end table. The same compartment held a few sheets, but Clover had apparently brought along more blankets than anyone could possibly need. Once Aoi had set up the sheets, Light put on 3 blankets- one was almost the size of a queen bed comforter, the other two were small, but very soft and warm-looking. The finished bed looked almost like a nest. Aoi barely cared that he wasn’t necessarily in pajamas, he was simply too tired. He laid down close to the window, which was still open. He closed the shades, which made the cabin much darker than expected, but he could still make out Light’s pale figure. He was sitting on the edge of the bed, with his back to Aoi, and he appeared to be poring over a book written in braille. Aoi wondered what it was about, knowing Light, it was probably plants or physics, or something to do with science in general.

The gentle rocking of the train was lulling Aoi to sleep, slowly but surely. Light was still reading when Aoi fell asleep. After a while, when Light had finished his book, he changed into his pajamas; a shirt with a random graphic and plaid pajama pants. Due to his lack of sight, Clover picked out his clothes for him most of the time, which had sometimes led to rather humorous situations. Light laid down next to Aoi, who was sleeping surprisingly calmly- normally, he had nightmares often corresponding with the Nonary games he’d partaken in.

After a while, Light had drifted off to sleep next to Aoi. It was only 4 p.m., and it was likely that they would all wake up at ridiculous hours of the morning. Light didn’t care, though- there was nothing better to do if everyone else was resting.

 


End file.
